SCHOOLS' SUPPORT STAFF GETS NEW CONTRACT

After six months of negotiations, secretaries and other support staff in town schools have a new contract that gives them salary increases of about 3 percent.

Without comment, the school board unanimously ratified the three-year agreement late Wednesday. The 29 members of the support staff bargaining unit approved the contract last month, unit co-president Marcia Kupferschmid said.

The contract with secretaries, bookkeepers and other aides calls for a salary increase for each employee of between 2.8 and 3.2 percent, according to a statement released by the board.

The agreement also requires the support staff to contribute 5 percent of the cost of their health insurance, the statement said.

"No other board or town bargaining unit has negotiated an insurance contribution that requires all members of the unit to contribute to their medical insurance plan," the statement said.

Negotiators for the support staff may reopen salary and insurance issues after the first year, the board said. All other language in the pact is fixed.

Ron Blanchette, chairman of the board's negotiating team, declined to comment after the vote.

"I think it's a fair contract," Kupferschmid said Wednesday afternoon. "We tried to be sensitive to the economic times."

The school board met for 30 minutes in closed session at the start of Wednesday's meeting to discuss the negotiations.

Other details of the contract were not immediately available.

Aside from the support staff, contract talks have concluded with the school system's van drivers, but are just beginning with teachers and administrators.

The van drivers, who transport students in special-education programs, are working under a three-year contract that took effect July 1.

The agreement, approved by the school board last month, does not give the seven employees any raises. The drivers are on a six-step salary schedule and earn between $8.22 and $9.70 an hour.

After one year, however, the union representing the van drivers may reopen talks with the school board on salaries and insurance.

"We went in with a hard bargaining position and stuck to it," said school board member Bill Harford, the head of the committee that negotiated with the drivers for three months. "They agreed to it."

Among other contract provisions, the drivers gave up one earned day, Harford said. The employees gain additional days with pay for perfect attendance over three-month periods, he said.

Harford said he doesn't expect contract talks with 147 district teachers to go as smoothly. "I think the teachers will fight all the way," he said.

Bargainers for the school board and the teachers union held a second meeting Tuesday. Board members and administrators are expected to meet tonight for a second negotiating session, Harford said.